Students around the world returning to university this week are, whether or not they know it, living disrupters of the global market in education. Given that tuition fees vary widely between colleges and countries, many are looking overseas.

不管他们知道与否，今年9月返校的全球大学生是全球教育市场活生生的颠覆者。鉴于各所高校和各个国家的学费有很大不同，很多人把目光投向海外。

A growing number of American students, for example, are trying their luck at British, Canadian, French, German and Australian institutions.

例如，越来越多的美国学生正尝试申请英国、加拿大、法国、德国和澳大利亚的学校。

But there is one corner of the education market that is proving harder to disrupt.

但事实证明，有一块教育市场更难颠覆。

Regardless of fees charged by the university, all students face high and rising book bills. For 75 per cent of those enrolled¹ at the University of São Paulo, the cost of textbooks exceeded their family’s monthly income.

不管大学收取的学费如何，所有学生都面临高昂且不断上涨的课本费用。在圣保罗大学(University of São Paulo)的所有学生中，有75%的学生的课本费用超过家庭月收入。

In the US the retail² prices for recent editions of Fundamentals of Corporate³ Finance,Modern Physics and Principles of Microeconomics, textbooks that are required for big introductory courses, run to hundreds of dollars.

在美国，大型基础课程所需要的新版课本——如《公司财务基础》、《现代物理学》和《微观经济学原理》——零售价高达数百美元。

Textbook prices in the US increased 82 per cent between 2003 and 2013. The digital versions do not help much; they are often coupled with expensive access codes without which students cannot complete and submit coursework. These codes often come with expiry dates, at which point students’ access to their materials is cut off. The potential for reselling is eliminated.

2003年至2013年，美国大学课本的价格上涨了82%。数字版也没便宜多少；它们往往有昂贵的登录密码，没有密码学生就无法完成并提交作业。这些密码往往有截止日，过了截止日，学生就失去了访问这些资料的权限。转售的可能性就此被排除。

But, as in so many other industries, a different kind of digital disruption is on the way. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology led the way in 2001 by putting almost all its course materials online for free.

然而，就像其他很多行业一样，一种不同的数字颠覆扑面而来。2001年，麻省理工学院(MIT)一马当先，把几乎所有课程资料免费放在网上。

In 2002 Unesco convened⁴ a global forum⁵ that launched the Open Educational Resourcesmovement.

2002年，联合国教科文组织(UNESCO)召集了一个全球论坛，推出“开放教育资源”(Open Educational Resources)运动。

This programme includes textbooks, course materials, online modules⁶, videos and assessments⁷ that support teaching and learning. “Open” means more than just free; it means that the resources carry an open copyright licence, giving staff and students the freedom to modify, reuse and share them.

该计划包括课本、课程资料、在线模块、视频以及支持授课和学习的评估。“开放”不仅仅意味着免费；它还意味着这些资源有着开放的版权许可，员工和学生可以自由修改、重复使用和分享。

Using openly licensed⁸ content also means that staff can legally modify material in order to tailor instruction to meet the needs of their students.

利用开放许可内容还意味着员工可以合法修改资料，让教学适应学生的需要。

Today the movement is growing fast.

如今，这一运动发展迅速。

The Paris-based OECD published a report last year, reviewing a decade of OER use around the world and making recommendations for governments seeking to encourage it.

总部位于巴黎的经合组织(OECD)去年发布了一份报告，对“开放教育资源”10年来在全球的使用情况进行评估，并为那些希望鼓励这项运动的政府提出建议。

The report highlighted initiatives in Canada, India, Ghana and South Africa. Several European governments have been focusing on the costs of materials as a burden on students; Italy is sponsoring the collaborative creation of textbooks by a national network of 800 teachers.

报告介绍了加拿大、印度、加纳和南非的计划。几个欧洲政府一直关注于课程资料成本带给学生的负担；意大利正资助一个由全国800名教师组成的网络，由其合作编写课本。

In the US, Achieving the Dream, the education organisation⁹, this year announced a $10m OER initiative. This will support 38 community colleges as they develop two-year degree programmes using OER.

在美国，教育组织“实现梦想”(Achieving the Dream)今年宣布了一项1000万美元的“开放教育资源”计划。它将支持38所社区大学利用“开放教育资源”发展两年期学位课程。

Awareness¹⁰ of OER will take time to spread among faculty¹¹ members. Only 10 per cent of the staff teaching large undergraduate courses have adopted OER, according to a recent report by Babson Survey Research Group, although 31 per cent reported that they are open to using open resources in the future.

对“开放教育资源”的认识需要花费时间在教职员工中传播。根据巴布森集团(Babson Survey Research Group)最近的一份报告，在教授大型本科课程的教职员工中，只有10%使用了“开放教育资源”，尽管有31%称他们愿意未来使用开放资源。

OER applies more readily to introductory courses covering a wide area in which it is possible to identify an agreed body of knowledge and set of skills that students must master.

“开放教育资源”更适用于基础课程，这些课程涵盖广泛领域，能够确定公认的知识体系和学生必须掌握的技能。

Higher level courses rely more on books and articles that express a particular author’s opinion, analysis and personal research.

更高级别的课程在更大程度上依赖那些表达某个作者观点、分析和个人研究的图书和文章。

As with all intellectual property rights, society must debate how to continue to create incentives¹² for the production of knowledge while also maximising its dissemination¹³. Moreover, “free” goods of any quality do not create themselves. Wikipedia depends on volunteers but also on donations that fund a paid staff.

与所有知识产权一样，社会必须就如何在继续为知识的产生创造激励举措的同时最大化知识传播展开辩论。另外，无论是何种品质的“免费”商品都不会自我创造。维基百科(Wikipedia)依赖于志愿者，还要依靠捐款为员工支付薪水。

Still, the story of OER is a cautionary tale. A few bestsellers have become big hits while everyone else sells far fewer products.

话虽如此，“开放教育资源”的故事是一个警示。少数畅销资源走红，但其他人卖出的产品少得多。

But the digital world also provides myriad¹⁴ ways for people and institutions on the losing end of the winner-take-all equation to strike back.

然而，数字世界为在“赢者通吃”等式中败下阵来的人们和学府提供了多种反击的方法。

Governments have discovered the power of protests fuelled by social media; the music and media industries have had to develop new business models based on free content and sharing. Software companies have ended up paying a licence to Linux, the crowdsourced free operating system.

政府已发现社交媒体推动的抗议的力量；音乐和媒体产业不得不基于免费内容和分享开发新的业务模式。软件公司最终向众包免费操作系统Linux支付许可费。

High walls and high prices are an invitation for digital disrupters to find new ways to compete.

高墙和高价正促使数字颠覆者找到新的竞争方式。